Heavenly Khan

HEAVENLY KHAN A Biography of Tang Taizong (Li Shimin) a historical novel Victor Cunrui Xiong To the Memory of Brigid Keogh (1909—2007), Educator, philanthropist, and missionary HEAVENLY KHAN Contents Author’s Note i Part I. Quest for the Throne (613–626) 1 Part II. The Good Government of Zhenguan (627–643) 93 Part III. Last War (643–650) 191 Bibliography 237 Chronology 238 Glossary 241 List of Illustrations Fig. 1. Tang Chang’an (Sui Daxing City) iii Fig. 2. Sui Luoyang iv Map 1. Tang China in the Early Seventh Century v Map 2. Advance of the Righteous Army in 617 24 Map 3. Battle of Zhezhi City (618) 46 Map 4. War Against Liu Wuzhou and Song Jingang (619–620) 56 Map 5. War Against Dou Jiande (620–621) 62 Map 6. Northeast China and Koguryŏ in 645 207 Author’s Note I would like to express my sincere gratitude to those who made the writing of this book possible. I owe a profound debt to the great writers of historical fiction of the past two centuries in the West and to students of History 3020 (World History to 1500) at Western Michigan University, who read with enthusiasm the historical fictions I assigned them. Dr. Dongfang Shao of the Library of Congress recommended me to Airiti Press. Adam Christopher Matthews of Western Michigan University reviewed and copy- edited the whole manuscript and saved me from quite a few embarrassments. Stu Smith of Kalamazoo, Michigan, offered some insightful remarks. The Burnham-Macmillan Endowment of the History Department, Western Michigan University, provided funding to defray the cost associated with the production of the book. Lastly, my wife, Xiaoqing Li, gave me constant support and encouragement. This book is a historical fiction. But it is essentially based on traditional historical sources. Although challenged by modern scholars in a few areas, these sources are highly reliable. Readers interested in the history of the period in question are referred to the modern studies in the Bibliography. During Sui-Tang times, the Chinese had no concept of minutes or weeks. Traditionally, a day was divided into 12 instead of 24 sections. Nonetheless, I use such temporal terms as “minutes,” “hours,” and “weeks” for the benefit of the reader. The traditional Chinese calendar was a lunisolar calendar and was approximately one month behind the Julian-Gregorian Calendar. In this book, I normally use Julian- Gregorian Calendar dates. When Chinese dates are given, they are expressed in ordinal numbers (e.g.: the 1st day of the 2nd month). The traditional Chinese way of counting age regards a person at birth as one year old and adds one more year on the first New Year’s Day. Thus, an age recorded in a traditional source is one to almost two years older than the real age. In this book, I convert recorded ages to approximate real ages by deducting one year. In Western literature, China is sometimes referred to as the “Middle Kingdom” (zhongguo). To avoid confusion with its use associated with Ancient Egypt, I replace it with the “Central Kingdom.” The only traditional unit of measurement used in this book is li, which varied slightly from the first to the second reigns of the Sui, and from Sui to Tang, and is roughly equivalent to half a kilometer or slightly shorter than one third of a mile. Place names are usually traditional ones followed by their modern equivalents in parentheses where necessary. However, in the case of large geographical regions, modern place names are sometimes used (Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Manchuria, and such like) instead of their Sui-Tang equivalents. Some Sui-Tang region names in this book such as Henan, Hebei, and Shandong have survived into present-day usage, but the areas they covered in Sui-Tang times were larger and less well defined than their modern namesakes. Part I. Quest for the Throne (613–626) 1. The War of Daye 9 One morning in March, Daye 9 (613), the Emperor Yang Guang was holding court in the assembly hall of the Daye Basilica in Luoyang the Eastern Capital. The soft-skinned, middle-aged sovereign was sitting on a yellow silk throne, behind an agarword low table and beneath a yellow ornate baldachin. The throne was positioned atop a raised marble dais above two flights of stairs at the northern end of the commodious hall. In a stately but factual tone, the Emperor spoke for about half an hour, paused to stare ruefully into the vaulted ceiling a few moments, and continued in a raised, irritated voice, “The Koguryǒ are inferior barbarians. Still, they have humiliated our superior state. If we so desire, we can pull up the Eastern Sea and remove Mount Tai, to say nothing of crushing these small-time bandits. We must launch another expedition against them.” The audience—the leading civil officials and top military commanders of the Sui Empire—listened in awe. “This time,” he resumed, “I will lead in person.” Silence gripped the hall briefly before a high-pitched, feeble voice began to speak from the audience: “Your Majesty, in my humble opinion, the Koguryǒ bandits are not strong enough to withstand another assault by our mighty army.” It was Yuwen Tai. Well past 70, he had an emaciated face and tall stature, and carried himself with a military bearing. As one of the key commanding officers in the War of Daye 8 (612), Yuwen had been brought back to Luoyang in chains after the war had ended in ignominious defeat for the Sui. Only recently had he been reinstated by the Emperor. “Your Majesty,” Yuwen Shu continued, “it would be hard to imagine that any foreign power would be foolish enough to challenge the might of the Sui Empire with her more than 1 million men under arms. Least of all little Koguryǒ, a country about the size of a Sui Commandery with a tiny military.” “We concur,” several in the crowd said. Others remained silent except for an elderly-looking man of stout physique, who said, “However, our Central Kingdom has yet to fully recover from the War of Daye 8. Furthermore, one does not shoot a rat with a bow of a thousand pounds. How can the sovereign of our country, one of ten thousand chariots, condescend to fight such a pitiful enemy in person?” “I appreciate your frankness and loyalty, Mr. Guo Rong. But my plan is to bring an overwhelming force to bear against Koguryǒ, and force her into submission by fear without much of an engagement.” Addressing the entire audience, the Emperor asked, almost rhetorically, “I suppose there is no more objection?” When no one spoke a word, He declared, “Preparations for the Daye-9 War against Koguryǒ start now.” The Koguryǒ were an ancient Korean people. They founded their first state in 37 BCE. By the time of the late Sui, Koguryǒ had become by far the most dominant power of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, with a territory that took up much of Manchuria and most of the Korean Peninsula. In antiquity, after the Zhou conquest of the Shang around 1045 BCE, a member of the Shang royal family, Jizi (Kija), was enfeoffed in north Korea. Almost 1000 years later, Emperor Wu of the Western han set up four Commanderies in the Korean Peninsula and southern Manchuria in 108 BCE. These records provided a ready rationale for later Chinese sovereigns to engage in aggressive action. But oftentimes, the invading sovereign was actuated by more immediate reasons. When the Emperor Yang Jian (Yang Guang’s father) launched the first Sui invasion in 598, He wanted to rein in the defiant Koguryǒ sovereign, who had attempted to form an alliance with the Tujue (a nomadic people north of China proper), which was regarded as a threat to the Sui Empire’s security. When the Emperor Yang Guang launched the Daye-8 (612) and Daye-9 (613) Wars, He was driven by an ambition to surpass his father. Built on a vantage point, the parallelogram-shaped Liaodong City (Liaoyang, Liaoning), the westernmost Koguryǒ urban center of importance, was circumvallated with a ring of tall walls and a massive moat. It had a total of four city gates, each with its own gatetower—a two-storied structure with embrasures atop the wall—and a watchtower towering over the gatetower. With hills and mountains to its north and east and rolling fields and woodlands to its south and west, this strongly fortified city seemed impregnable. But the Emperor Yang Guang, who had just arrived at the Liaodong front, had no intention of altering his invasion plan adopted at Luoyang (Luoyang, Henan) one month earlier. To maximize his chances of success, he mobilized a large expeditionary army comprised of three columns. The first column, placed under His direct command, had as its immediate target Liaodong City. The second column— the main force led by his top generals Yuwen Shu and Yang Yichen—was to march east across the Yalu River. The third column, comprised of naval forces, was to cross the sea from the eastern tip of the Shandong Peninsula to land in the eastern suburb of Pyongyang. The second and third columns would coordinate an attack on that city from the north and the east. As the battle for Liaodong City—the first major engagement in the Daye-9 War—began in earnest, the Emperor launched a day-and-night assault on this Koguryǒ outpost from four directions. A whole range of missile weapons and siege devices were deployed, including arbalests, catapults, mangonels, battering rams, and scaling ladders.

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